


do i wanna know? (if this feeling flows both ways)

by trentedeuxdents



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: F/M, Frenemies with Benefits, Genderbending, fem!Dami
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-24
Updated: 2019-03-24
Packaged: 2019-11-29 04:21:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18218150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trentedeuxdents/pseuds/trentedeuxdents
Summary: It’s nice to feel wanted, even if it is for all the wrong reasons.





	do i wanna know? (if this feeling flows both ways)

**Author's Note:**

> Title from _Do I Wanna Know?_ by Arctic Monkeys. Tiny mentions of dickdami, brujay, and taliajay, if you squint.

He spots her soon enough. Which is, of course, the whole point of coming to his club in the first place. She knows her assets, and isn’t beneath using them to get what she wants, when she wants.

She is Damian Wayne, after all.

Jason wrenches the guy off by the neck of his collar and snatches the glass from her fingertips. “If you _wanted_ Bruce to murder me, you could have just asked,” he says, glaring.

She re-crosses her legs and looks up at him coyly. “And why would I want that?”

Jason narrows his eyes. “What are you doing here?”

“Haven’t you heard? It’s my birthday.” She shrugs and reaches for the glass, making sure to graze his fingers as she does so. She watches as he takes in her outfit, her makeup, and she can see it dawn slowly on him, the way his mouth twists into that little smirk, the one that makes her want to punch him in the face.

“Lonely, are we?” He says mockingly, but she refuses to bite. This is familiar territory, nothing she can’t deal with.

“Depends,” she says slowly.

“On what?”

“Whether or not you intend to do something about it.” She takes a sip, looking at him over the rim of the glass, and her gaze is unmistakable. His smirk wavers a little, and for a moment she’s afraid she may have misjudged the situation terribly, as she already has once tonight; and the thought of that—of being turned down twice in a row—is so unbearable, she does something reckless and stupid.

She drags him down by the collar and kisses him.

He tastes like cigarettes and smells like cologne, smoke and spice and absolutely _nothing_ like Grayson; and she’s never been more grateful (she’s never been more disappointed). He doesn’t kiss her back, not yet, but after she’s pulled away his eyes are dark with something she can’t read.

He swallows hard, catching her wrist. “We can’t do this, kid,” he says, and Damian all but rolls her eyes at him.

“Watch me,” she growls, eyes glinting fiercely, and his gaze flickers like he’s remembered something, like he’s looking at her and seeing someone else. She couldn’t care less either way. Damian drags him back down again, and this time he doesn’t stop her. This time he kisses her back.

*

They keep coming back to each other.

It’s completely explicable of course. She is, after all, Bruce and Talia’s child; she sees it whenever she looks into a mirror—cheekbones like her mother’s, eyes like her father’s. She is at once wilful and stubborn and hot-blooded and determinedly cold, both the best and the worst of her equal parts; and she thinks that’s why Jason keeps coming back.

It is why _she_ keeps coming back; even when she knows full well she could have anyone else (apart from the one she actually wants). There is a certain twisted, savage pleasure in knowing that Jason could never resist, could never refuse _her_ : the closest possible thing to what he wants but can’t have. _The perfect reincarnation._ It’s nice to feel wanted, even if it is for all the wrong reasons; so she lets him fuck her to remember, while she fucks him to forget.

They are rough with each other, in all the ways she likes, leaving bite marks like battle scars, finger bruises that last for days. She likes that he never holds back with her, is never gentle or apologetic, because she is _Damian_ , and she can damn well take whatever it is he has to give.

They fuck like they fight, with that raw, insatiable need, fury and bloodlust singing in their veins. They’ve always been alike, more so than all the others, which is probably why she used to despise him so much. It’s different now, she thinks, as she takes the cigarette from his fingers and raises it to her lips. They each have what the other wants, and they're both willing to give. She drapes her bare legs across his lap as they sit on the bed and smoke, the silence heavy yet comfortable. Even after all these years, they can’t seem to manage two sentences without bickering; but when Jason shifts her legs to settle between them, her thighs around his neck and her fingers in his hair, she can’t help but think they’ve never needed words anyway.

*

She never stays. Mostly. It’s an unspoken agreement between them, a common understanding that they don’t owe each other anything beyond this. But there are times, rare occasions, when she falls into another fight with her father, or when she’s not in the mood to be reasoned with and doesn’t want to be found, that she crawls in through his window and stays the night. He doesn’t say anything, but in the morning he makes her pancakes and listens to her bitch about Father, or Grayson, or Drake; pitching in occasionally with some witty remark that makes her laugh, and afterwards she feels a little better. She likes him best at times like these, she thinks, but it doesn’t mean anything.

There is that one time though, a bad night out on patrol where she comes too close to crossing the line, and afterwards when she falls asleep, she slips straight into a nightmare. There’s blood all over her hands, dripping from her blade; and her mother is there, arms wide open, folding her into an embrace, right before she plunges a sword into her chest.

“Happy birthday, Damian,” Talia whispers, and she wakes up with a start, her mother’s voice echoing in her ears.

She staggers to the tiny bathroom, flicking on the light, and sees Talia staring at her from across the sink. She lunges forward with her fist raised, pain and terror ripping through her chest, and it isn’t until half the glass lies shattered and bloody in the sink that she realizes her eyes are blue, not green.

She curls up under the sink, cradles her hand to her chest, and cries.

She’s not crying anymore when Jason comes in to find her, but her eyes sting and her cheeks are wet and she wants to lash out at him; because she hates that he gets to see her like this, weak and fragile and pathetic. But he never once looks at her face, simply takes out the cotton and forceps and reaches for her hand, and eventually she gives in and lets him clean her wounds.

They don’t talk, and when he’s done he ties her hand up in gauze and leaves, closing the door gently behind him.

She’s gone by the time he wakes up.

*

On her eighteenth birthday, Bruce throws her a party fit for a Wayne. It’s more to maintain a public presence than anything else, fodder for the Gotham tabloids, and she loathes it. She has a nightmare the night before, and in the morning when she comes down to have her makeup done, Steph tuts and fusses and despairs over the state of her under-eyes.

But Steph is nothing if not a miracle worker, and by afternoon she has Damian fitted into her evening gown, hair up and heels on, every inch flawless. She wades through the waves of snobs and sycophants on her father’s arm, her face cracking a little more each time she smiles, until she’s not sure she can hold it in any longer. She excuses herself and escapes onto the balcony, drawing in lungfuls of Gotham’s cold night air and wishing she were out there, swinging in her mask and cape alongside Cass and Steph and Tim.

Being Robin has always been so much easier than being Damian Wayne.

He surprises her when he drapes his coat around her shoulders, but she hides it, spinning around to face him, eyes narrowed.

“I thought you would be out there with the others.”

Jason smirks as he lights a cigarette. “And miss your party? Not for the world, princess.”

He breathes a cloud of smoke into the air, and she wafts it away, annoyed. “What are you doing here, Todd?”

“Fetching you a drink, geez. You look like you could use one.” He hands her the glass filled with two fingers of bourbon, and she accepts, curling her fingers around it carefully.

“I’m underage,” she says, and Jason snorts.

“Yeah, like that’s stopped you before.”

“If you wanted my father to murder you, you could have just asked.”

He puffs out another breath of smoke, his eyes dark with something she can’t read. “And why would I want that?”

She doesn’t have a reply to that, so she averts her gaze and knocks back the liquor. It slides down her throat, a solid, plunging warmth that emanates through her chest and leaves her mind floating in a haze. Their fingers brush when she hands him back the glass, and he sets it down on the balustrade, curling her small hand into his own. His head is bowed, and she realizes he’s looking at her scars, the unassuming bumps that criss-cross her knuckles, long since faded to silver. Her stomach lurches, and she recalls the nightmare from last night, and all the other nightmares she’s had since she was ten; and the sickly sweet cling of bourbon suddenly tastes like blood on the back of her tongue.

She doesn’t realize she’s shaking until he looks up at her, quietly alarmed, and she flinches, starts to pull away. He wraps his arms around her, and it’s a little too reminiscent of her recent nightmare, the temporary warmth before the cold cleave of a sword, and she wants to shove him off in panic, wants to fight and scream and run away. But this is Jason, not Talia, and his arms are large and warm as he holds her close, pressing murmurs into her hair. He smells like smoke and spice and she hates him for it, for thinking that he has a right to comfort her, that his words mean anything at all. But it’s nothing compared to how much she hates herself, because she is _Damian Wayne_ ; and Damian Wayne should never have been so careless as to fall for someone that looks at her and sees someone else.

She shakes her head furiously. “I’m not—,” she starts to say, but he cuts her off before she can stumble and falter.

“I know,” he says simply, cupping her jaw. “But they’ve never been anything like you.”

Then he leans down to kiss her, slow and unhurried, and she nearly sways with relief; but he catches her, holds her tighter, kisses her deeper. And she’s reminded of all the times she tried to be more, to be good, to be _better_ , and all the times it wasn’t enough; and she would crawl through his window and they would sit together, counting their ghosts until the sun rose. And she remembers how, with him, there was never the need to prove anything.

Just being Damian was enough.


End file.
